“ICSR provides a great platform for serious, constructive dialogue on the most hotly debated issues, as well as a source of world-class expertise on many of the international challenges we face.”

Ambassador Mitchell B. Reiss

The International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation (ICSR) is a world-class and internationally acclaimed academic research centre based in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London.

Working across a number of different academic disciplines and in several languages, ICSR conducts thematic research on some of the world’s most pressing issues. Our researchers are often among the first to discover new trends, identify emerging patterns, and have harnessed the capacity of ‘big data’ to bring an empirical understanding to the study of international security and terrorism issues.

“The work done by ICSR is so important, because it looks at all kinds of terrorism and extremism. It helps us understand historical trends and patterns, so we don’t repeat the mistakes of the past.”

President Chandrika Kumaratunga

Foreign Fighters and the Returnee Threat

ICSR has developed some of the most sophisticated open-source methods used by academics today to better understand the origins, role and involvement of the foreign fighters participating in the Syrian confict.

Islamist and Jihadist Non-State Actor Governance in the Arab World

The Women and Minors of Islamic State

At its peak, Islamic State governed over 11 million people in Syria and Iraq in a territory that once exceeded the size of the United Kingdom. Among these millions were an estimated 41,490 men, women and minors, who travelled to, or were born into, the Islamic State project.

The Crime-Terror Nexus

Many of the jihadist terrorist attacks that have hit Europe in recent years, leaving hundreds dead and many more injured, had some sort of overlap with the criminal world with a significant number of attackers having criminal pasts.

Syria’s Kurds and the Syrian Civil War

This project explores the role of the Kurds in the war against Islamic State, as well as their participation in the broader Syrian conflict. The main actors being studied are the People’s Protection Units (YPG) and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

Extremism, Terrorism and Strategic Communication

Jihadist propaganda has never been more salient but its motivations and impact are often misunderstood. This research examines online and offline public diplomacy efforts from the likes of the Islamic State, al-Qaeda, and Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in Syria.

The Religious Foundations of Political Violence

Building on a longstanding academic partnership, TRENDS Research & Advisory and the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation (ICSR), have launched a major new project to examine the religious foundations of political violence.